April 29th the NRECA will hold its annual legislative fly-in in Washington D.C.

NRECA’s meeting this year will focus on a rolling out of the grassroots message that they will be advancing in the coming year. This message is sure to be centered around opposition to the recent actions of the EPA and government regulation in general. Public Power Reform would like to hold a meeting of progressive co-op board members who may be in D.C. for this conference. The intention of our meeting is to prepare members for the information that NRECA will be presenting. It is important that NRECA hear that not all of their owner/members are opposed to regulation of fossil-fueled energy generation.
Contact:
Wes Perrin
National Organizer
Public Power Reform
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Four new Cobb EMC directors elected

Four more seats on the Cobb EMC board of directors are now in new hands, and two more will be settled in unprecedented runoff elections on April 21
by Kim Isaza
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Letter to Congressional Agricultural committees to support core Farm Bill energy programs

We ran across this and it looks like a worth while effort, get your organization to sign on.

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Why Coop Elections Matter

The election of strong candidates to our nation's rural electric cooperatives boards of directors is of vital importance to our nation's energy future. Anyone who would hold that such election success is too small a thing to effect true change has obviously never spent a night in a sleeping bag with a mosquito. If you have spent such a night then you know how something very small can make you uncomfortable, cause you to change your position, or possibly make you move to a new place altogether.

The election of candidates to rural electric cooperatives can help cause a switch from dangerous fossil fuels to the cleanest, safest energy choices available. They can also lead to an adherence to transparent governance practices with an open ear to the coop's membership. Not bad for a little mosquito. A little history on the subject will explain why this mosquito can be so effective.

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Big Hot Texas sun: Problem or Resource?

We're in the midst of a heat wave and drought that are on record to be Texas' worst in recorded history. (and now imagine if global warming actually kicked in, the way all those scientists say! *wink*)

But we have a few options. Cope, adapt, or conquer. I much prefer the last solution to the first.

First, we can cope. Go find some shade or just go sit in our homes and offices and blast the air conditioning as much as we can to make these ever-warming, record-breaking hot, dry summers as tolerable as possible. But massive electric bills and rolling blackouts don't sound like much of an alternative.

Or, we can adapt. We can change how we do things to stave off the worst effects of our unprecedented droughts and heat waves. This means doing smart things, like moving to smart meters and energy efficiency. Our central Texas coops have been among the best at rolling out some of these programs

Adapting is fine, but even better is conquering our problems. As Texans, and as Americans, this is generally the tactic most of us would choose. This would mean not only going after the low-hanging efficiency fruit, and aggressively going after demand-side management as a resource, but also looking for ways to turn our crisis into opportunity. While the Texas sun may be causing us problems, it can also be the key to our future, as solar prices drop to rates competitive with other "cheap" fossil fuels.

You can read the rest of this over on the Texas site by clicking here.

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Welcome to our blog!

The blog here at Co-op conversations is where we get some of the conversation started. We want people to share breaking news stories about your local co-ops and their own local views on them.

Please sign up, sign in, and leave your comments. If you're interested in contributing to the blog, we can do that too. Just email the Site Admin and let us know.

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